Neek makes a living piloting the
dilapidated tramp transport, Mercy’s Pledge, and smuggling questionable goods
across systems blessed with peace and prosperity. She gets by—but only just. In
her dreams, she is still haunted by thoughts of Ardulum, the traveling planet
that, long ago, visited her homeworld. The Ardulans brought with them
agriculture, art, interstellar technology…and then disappeared without a trace,
leaving Neek’s people to worship them as gods.

Neek does not believe—and has paid
dearly for it with an exile from her home for her heretical views.

Yet, when the crew stumbles into an
armed confrontation between the sheriffs of the Charted Systems and an unknown
species, fate deals Neek an unexpected hand in the form of a slave girl—a child
whose ability to telepathically manipulate cellulose is reminiscent of that of
an Ardulan god. Forced to reconcile her beliefs, Neek chooses to protect her,
but is the child the key to her salvation, or will she lead them all to their
deaths?

She looked out the viewscreen just in
time to see the Pledge—her engines dead—exit the Callis Wormhole into the
middle of a much-unexpected dogfight. A wedge-shaped Risalian skiff zipped past
the Pledge, catching the edge of the ship on its wing, and started her into a
slow spin. A pod, deep purple and about half the size of the skiff, chased the
skiff and grazed their starboard flank. Neek braced herself against the console
and heard Yorden tumble into the wall behind her, his substantial girth denting
the aluminum.

Mentally cursing the ship’s poor
artificial gravity, Neek launched herself into the pilot’s chair, grabbed the
yoke, and scoured the latest damage report. “Aft stabilizer is shot,” she
called out after checking the computer. Other skiffs near them suddenly swooped
back into a larger group, and the Pledge was, for the moment, left alone. Neek
released the yoke and let her fingers move deftly over the interface. “Those
new spray-on cellulose binders for the hull are holding, but only just. What’s
left of the Minoran armor plating is now officially cracked beyond repair.”

She swiveled to see the captain buckling
himself into a much larger version of her own chair. His brown hair puffed
about his head, per usual, but his body language spoke of surprise and tension.
That concerned Neek because Yorden was old enough to have lived through actual
conflicts. If anyone knew how to react in a situation like this, it was him.

“Were we just attacked?” she asked
incredulously. Neek took a closer look out the viewscreen. The rectangular
cutter that sparkled with pinpricks of light and the wedge-shaped, agile skiffs
were Risalian. The pods—both the smaller purple ones and the frigate-sized,
maroon ones—were unfamiliar. Their formations were just as strange, stacked in
columns like stones on a riverbank instead of in pyrimidal and spherical
formations like Systems ships would. “Are those all Charted Systems ships?”

Yorden threw up his hands in disgust.
“They’re not just Charted Systems ships—they’re Risalian ships. The cutter and
skiffs are, anyway. No clue on the pods. What those blue-skinned bastards are
doing out here with fully weaponized ships, I can only guess. However, they’re
firing lasers. If we lose our armor and take a hit from any of those, we are
space dust.”

“Comforting,” Neek mumbled. She hadn’t
noticed the laser ports on any of the ships, but now that she looked closer,
all of the vessels were covered with armor plating and had at least two laser
turrets each.

Neek continued to watch as the pods
begin to cluster around a Risalian cutter. A pod ship zipped beneath the
cutter, firing wildly at its underside, before making a quick right turn and
heading back to a larger pod. Five others followed suit. The cutter’s shielding
began to splinter, but the ship remained where it was.

Neek leaned towards the viewscreen,
still unsure what she was seeing. “The Risalian ships aren’t chasing, they’re
just defending. What is going on? If they’re going to appoint themselves
sheriffs of the Charted Systems, they could at least fight back.”

Yorden smacked his hand against the
wall, loosing a shower of dust. “Something on that Risalian ship is holding
their attention. Get us out of here, before either of them gets any closer.” He
pointed to a cluster of ships to Neek’s right, and her eyes followed. Little
flashes of bright light sparked and then died intermittently as ships were
destroyed, their flotsam creating an ever-expanding ring. A large piece of
metal plating floated past the Pledge’s port window. The edge caught and left a
thin scratch in the fiberglass as it slid off.

“What are they protecting that is so
damn important?” Neek wondered out loud and then snorted. “Something worth more
than our hold full of diamond rounds and cellulose-laced textiles?” she added
cheekily.

Scowling, Yorden pushed Neek’s hand away
from the computer and began his own scan of the Pledge’s systems.
“Communications are still up, but I don’t think either party is listening right
now.” Frustrated, he kicked the underside of the console. “Try one of them. Better
than being crushed.”

“Captain, come on. We are dead in space.
If another one comes at us, why don’t we just fire at it? It’s better than
being rammed.” She pointed upwards at a circular hole in the ceiling. “What’s
the benefit of flying a ship so ancient it falls apart if you’re not taking
advantage of the grandfathered weapons system?”

Yorden’s terse response was cut off when
a short burst impacted the ship. Another group of skiffs flew past, depositing
laser fire as they did so. The Pledge banked to port, carrying momentum from
the impact. From the direction they had come lay a trail of shattered ship
plating.

A panicked voice called down from the
laser turret. Neek bristled, steeling herself against the inevitable irritation
that came whenever their Journey youth spoke. “That skiff just fired at us. How
does it even have weapons? I thought we were the only ones in the Systems with
a ship older than dirt.”

Neek wrapped her right hand back around
the steering yoke. Each of her eight fingers fit perfectly into the well-worn
grooves, and the brown leather darkened a shade as her naturally secreted stuk
smeared from her fingertips. She smiled to herself. Flying a geriatric tramp
was still better than flying nothing at all.

“Look, Captain,” she said, keeping her
eyes on the battle. “I can steer this thing if we get pushed, but that is it.
We don’t have any other options. They have guns. We have guns. Well, we have a
gun. Why don’t we use it?”

Yorden stared at the approaching ships
and then took a step back. “I am willing to ignore the illegality of what you
are suggesting because I don’t want to spend my retirement as incinerated
flotsam. Attracting more attention to ourselves is a terrible idea, but we
won’t have a choice if a ship comes at us again.” Neek raised an eyebrow, and
Yorden snorted. “Better incarcerated than dead, I suppose.”

A large plume of yellow smoke burst from
the far wall panel as Yorden spoke, almost as if the Pledge were agreeing. Two
more shots impacted the tramp and sent the small transport into a tight spin.
Neek gripped the yoke with both hands and pulled hard, trying to steady the
ship. Yorden’s hip smacked the main console, and the thin metal scaffold
dented.

“Do it!” he bellowed, rubbing his hip.
“We can worry about Risalian consequences for owning weapons if we live past
the next ten minutes.” The captain got onto his knees to inspect the new cloud
of smoke that was billowing from underneath the console. Neek fanned the
computer interface and coughed, attempting to assess the damage. The smell of
burning wood wafted towards her, and she suspected some of the new Cell-Tal bindings
were on fire.

“I don’t know how to work any of this
stuff,” Nicholas yelled back as the sound of frantic button pushing could be
heard over the panic in his voice. “I’m just supposed to be observing!”

“Just press buttons until something
happens,” Neek called up to him. Her head rolled back slightly as she relaxed
the Pledge from a tailspin to a gentle rotation by opening the gas vents. As
the internal gravity system began its whirring to adjust to their decreased
movement, laser bursts—sporadic and utterly uncoordinated—began to ring from
the Pledge’s turret. The bright streaks of yellow light shot in the general
direction of the fray.

“Try to aim, Nicholas!” Yorden bellowed
over his shoulder. “Did they teach you nothing useful in school? We’re not
trying to piss off both fleets, just keep them away from us.” He bent down and
opened an access panel beneath the yoke, searching again for the source of the
smoke that was now seeping through the upper console.

“Half of these switches don’t do
anything!” Nicholas yelled back, his voice muffled by laser fire.

“Why not try hitting the ones that do do
something?” Yorden retorted.

“Ha!” Neek exclaimed. She entered the
final series of commands with her left hand, and the star field outside the
viewscreen stabilized. “Did a little back alley reroute, so I think this waste
of space might just stay upright for a little bit. We’re far enough below the
battle that maybe we’ll be left alone for a while.”

As Neek finished her sentence, she
watched a Risalian skiff break formation and align perfectly with the Pledge.
Neek’s breath caught in her throat.

“Uh, Captain?” she said, not wanting to
turn around.

“Figure it out, Neek,” came Yorden’s
terse response. “If I don’t fix the air quality breaker, we’re going to
suffocate to death.”

The skiff edged closer, staying in their
direct line of sight. Neek assumed they were being scanned, but with the
archaic technology on the Pledge, she had no way to confirm it. She wondered
briefly if the pilot on the skiff was staring as intently out the viewscreen as
she was. She tried to imagine the mindset it took to fire on an unarmed ship
that was dead in space and, as she contemplated, rubbed the back of her head.
Of course, the Pledge was not unarmed, but the likelihood of the Risalians
having pulled the ship’s registration since their emergence from the wormhole
was low. Neek ground her fingertips into her temples. A funny tickle was
starting there—one she couldn’t quite place but hoped wasn’t the start of a
headache. Likely, it was just residual tension from speaking to her uncle.

A pod disengaged with the Risalian
cutter and swooped on top of the skiff, showering it with laser fire. The skiff
banked to starboard, avoiding each blast, and then righted. The pod moved to
the other side of the Pledge and bobbed around her edges.

“We’re being used as a shield,” Neek
muttered. Louder, she yelled, “Nicholas, pick one and just fire already!” The
pressure in Neek’s head grew. Irritated, she pressed a stuk-covered finger to
the affected area and visualized pushing the pain away.

A ringing sound came from the laser
turret. A bright yellow shot appeared from the top of the viewscreen and opened
a hole in the skiff’s hull. The ship began to list and, a moment later,
exploded when two additional shots were added by the pod.

“I got one!” Nicholas yelled. The sound
of his whooping could be heard distinctly through the ceiling. “Take that you
tiny skiffs!”

“Get the other one! Don’t stop until—”
Neek cut herself off as she took in the battlefront. Nicholas’s destruction of
the skiff caused a ripple effect among the others. The rest of the small
Risalian skiffs had broken formation and begun flying erratically. Some were
running into each other, others simply heading off course. One was listing at
an odd angle, expelling occasional bursts of red fuel. The Risalian cutter was
left unattended, and the strange pod frigate was closing in.

“Were the skiffs on autopilot?” Neek
asked incredulously.

“Autopilot doesn’t work for those kinds
of maneuvers,” Yorden responded. “It is only useful for fixed points and
straight lines.” Both watched in confusion as the smaller ships continued to
drift apart and the largest pod docked with the cutter. “The round ships aren’t
firing anymore,” Yorden murmured. “That’s something.”

“Do you want me to keep shooting,
Captain?” Nicholas had come down the ladder from the turret and into the main
cockpit. He was noticeably shaken, and the sweat stains on his shirt spoke of
the stress he had been under moments before. His expression darkened as he
asked, “I didn’t kill anyone, did I?”

“Maybe,” Neek responded casually, trying
not to think about the implications. She’d forgotten how sensitive Journey
youths could be. She tried to mitigate the snark in her tone but couldn’t quite
figure out how to do it. “It saved our lives though. Something worth writing
home about, anyway.”

Nicholas shifted uncomfortably on his
feet but remained uncharacteristically quiet.

A tiny, purple light began to flash at
the base of the console. Neek tapped the area. “Incoming hail from the pod
that’s docked with the Risalian cutter. You want to answer?”

“The troublemakers are contacting us?”
Yorden considered and then shrugged his shoulders as he accepted the hail.
“This is Captain Yorden Kuebrich of the Mercy’s Pledge. We’re a tramp ship on
our way to Oorin. To whom might we be speaking?”

A grainy image finally materialized on
the comm, revealing a hovering, purple-black, spherical being with no apparent
appendages, eyes, or mouth. It did, however, have distinctly human-looking ears
that protruded from the sides of the sphere.

“That’s a giant, sentient beach ball,”
Nicholas stated flatly.

“At least it’s not a traveling planet,”
Neek muttered.

Yorden glared at both of them and then
turned his attention back to the comm.

The ball creature bobbed up and down
twice. A lateral slit formed right in the center of its body and slowly opened.

“We’re off course,” the creature said in
perfect Common. “We’ve sustained heavy damage and must dock for repair. As you
are also disabled, we can offer you a tow to a planet with repair
capabilities.”

Yorden looked quickly to Neek, who
shrugged. They had to get a tow from someone. Why not a beach ball? There was
no way the Risalians would give them a tow after what they’d just done to their
fleet, and they definitely couldn’t just spin near the exit of a wormhole
forever.

“That’d be Oorin. We’ve got a pull loop
just under the port plating. I’ll have my pilot extend it, and you can latch on
however you want.” Yorden gestured at Neek, who, in an exaggerated movement,
brought two of her fingers up into an arc and then back down onto a blue button
on the far upper section of the console.

“Pull loop extended, Captain. Can we
have Nicholas get out and push?”

The young man scowled, but his retort
was cut off when the Pledge gave a large jerk as one of the alien pods latched
onto the pull loop with a coiled metal rope.

“Prepare for towing,” the sphere said
before cutting off the communication.

There was silence in the cockpit for a
long moment before Yorden exhaled and slumped into his chair. He leaned back,
and the chair reclined, groaning under his weight. “I think that took twenty
years off my life. We need to get answers from Chen when we hit the spaceport.
If the Charted Systems are being invaded—or whatever just happened to provoke
the Risalians—the Systems are not prepared for it.”

“This is just another notch on your
belt, I’d imagine, Captain.”

When Yorden didn’t respond, Neek
playfully punched him on the shoulder before she settled back and closed her
eyes. Notch on his belt, and another irritation on hers. She’d have to put off
calling her uncle back for at least a few days now, which wasn’t going to look
good on the yearly report. Maybe she should just write this year off altogether
and send the president a few recordings of her actual thoughts. Neek grinned.
That would be incredibly satisfying but, unfortunately, detrimental to her
goal.

At least the funniness in the back of
her head was gone. Whatever the last ten minutes had been about, Neek was glad
things hadn’t gotten more serious. Hopefully, they would soon be far, far away
from the Risalians, their ridiculously overpowered ships, and whatever it was
they wanted so desperately to protect.

When did you write your first story and what was
the inspiration for it?

My very first story I wrote sometime in grade school. I took
lined paper from spiral notebooks, folded it over, stapled it, and added text
and illustrations. I remember more about making the actual book than the
content. So perhaps my first legit attempt at writing a 'story' was the
incredibly awkward Star Wars fan fiction I wrote in junior high (maybe? maybe
it was high school) based off of one of the Extended Universe novels. I filled
two floppy discs with that story (the big ones, mind, not the little hard
ones). It had sex scenes in it, I'm embarrassed to say, and being something
like twelve at the time of writing, you can imagine how those went.

My inspiration for both was just a desire to permanently
record the stories in my head. I've been a daydreamer all my life, but I often
'go over' stories so much that I forget their original form. Writing was a way
to cement my original plots, so I would be able to relive them verbatim, if I
wanted to.

~~~~~~~~~~

Do you have a writing schedule or do you just write
when you can find the time?

I have a toddler and I work full time so writing is done
exclusively when my child is sleeping.

~~~~~~~~~~

Briefly describe the writing process. Do you create
an outline first? Do you seek out inspirational pictures, videos or music? Do
you just let the words flow and then go back and try to make some sense out it?

I'm one hundred percent a discovery writer. I've tried to
outline but it just never seems to work. My characters make their own choices
as the story unfolds, and it is impossible for me to intuit where they will go
or what they will do. This often means I can draft a book in a few months, but
I spend at least double that editing afterwards.

~~~~~~~~~~

Where did the desire to write LGBTQIA+ stories come
from?

I am a great lover of science fiction, but often very let
down at the relationship end of these books. I wanted to see more queer
characters, especially queer romantic relationships. About five years ago I got
frustrated waiting, and decided to do them myself.

~~~~~~~~~~

How much research do you do when writing a story
and what are the best sources you’ve found for giving an authentic voice to
your characters?

Thus far I've written books within my own area of expertise
of science, so I've not done too much research. I did run my chemistry past
another chemist just to make sure it didn't sound TOO impossible.

I really struggle with voice in writing. My life is in the
sciences, where voice is all but absent from the writing. For my characters to
have realistic voice I have to 'watch' the scenes in my head first, see how the
characters react and what they say, and then attempt to capture it on the page.

~~~~~~~~~~

What’s harder, naming your characters, creating the
title for your book or the cover design process?

Naming characters. I am so bad at this. Second worse is
naming spaceships!

~~~~~~~~~~

How do you answer the question “Oh, you're an
author...what do you write?"

I write across a few genres but I also publish academic
papers. I skirt the question usually by answering 'science' and changing the
topic!

~~~~~~~~~~

What does your family think of your writing?

My parents are confused by the whole thing. My partner would
like to know how many books I need to write before he can quit working and live
his dream of being a 1950s housewife (including the drinking).

~~~~~~~~~~

Tell us about your current work in process and what
you’ve got planned for the future.

The Ardulum series is finished (for now), at three books.
The new series I'm working on is fantasy and deals directly with my line of
university research (fungi as a magic system!). It will also be another
ownvoices series; with Ardulum I focused on sexuality, the new series will
focus more on gender.

I'm not certain about the future. I'll be writing, but after
my current WIP is finished, I'm not sure what I'll do. If the Ardulum series is
successful I'd love to keep writing in that universe, but I also want to
explore other genres and keep putting queer romances into speculative fiction.

~~~~~~~~~~

Do you have any advice for all the aspiring writers
out there?

Write! Write every day, even if you think what you're
writing is garbage. The only way to get better is to practice (and edit).

~~~~~~~~~~

If you could travel forward or backward in time,
where would you go and why?

I'd like to go forward fifty years or so, just to get a
glimpse of technology. I want to have my mind blown.

~~~~~~~~~~

We’ve all got a little voyeurism in us right? If
you could be a fly on the wall during an intimate encounter (does not need to
be sexual) between two characters, not your own, who would they be?

This is going to sound super nerdy but... there is this
little indie visual novel I love, called Queen at Arms. One of the romance
lines is a gender-queer soldier and the princess who is also a knight. If you
make certain decisions they end up together, and there is some smokey dialogue
before the screen fades to black and clothes start coming off.

I want the rest of that scene, damn it!

~~~~~~~~~~

If I were snooping around your kitchen and looked
in your refrigerator right now, what would I find?

No fruits, whole grains, and very few vegetables. I have a
rare genetic disorder called inherited fructose intolerance, which means I lack
the enzyme to digest fructose. I mostly eat meat, potatoes, and broccoli. It's a fantastic diet.

~~~~~~~~~~

If you could be a superhero, what would you want
your superpowers to be?

Fly. Always fly.

~~~~~~~~~~

If you could trade places with one of your
characters, who would it be and why?

In the Ardulum series? Wow. I'm pretty mean to all of those
characters and they all make some morally bankrupt choices at some point. So,
uh, erm, maybe Nicholas? I wouldn't mind a rose-colored view of the world for a
while.

~~~~~~~~~~

If you could sequester yourself for a week
somewhere and just focus on your writing, where would you go and what would the
environment be like?

I love big cities. I'd want to be in a high rise apartment
with a window looking over the city. I'd do a lot of the writing at night, when
the city lights are so distinct against the skyline. It would be glorious.

~~~~~~~~~~

What's the one thing, you can't live without?

Beds. I've spent too much of my life doing field work and
camping, from Upper Michigan forests and black flies to anaconda and piranha in
the Amazon rainforest. I'm too old for that stuff anymore. I want a bed and I
want a roof that doesn't leak.

If you had your own talk show, who would your first
three author guests be and why?

Garth Nix, because I am in love with the Old Kingdom series
and I want to get down on my knees and beg him for a spinoff story about queer
Clayr. The next would be Lynn Flewellig for her Bone Doll trilogy, because I
have some very real questions about the gender dynamics of her lead character
and I might be a little grumpy about it. The third would be Margaret Atwood
because OF COURSE.

~~~~~~~~~~

When you got your very first manuscript acceptance
letter, what was your initial reaction and who was the first person you told?

This is hard to answer for me, because I've published a fair
amount in other areas. The first time I got a peer-reviewed journal article
published I screamed a lot and called my parents (I was a PhD student and
highly excitable). My first book was a science-type coffee table book, and for
that I received an e-mail inviting me to a conference call, wherein the
publisher chatted with me (and a mess of other people), and then ended up
offering me a contract at the end. For that one I just walked around in a daze
for a few days and eventually had to call my sister and ask what had just
happened.

My first speculative fiction acceptance was with Ninestar
Press, for the Ardulum series. I signed through #DVpit. Since I was used to
phone calls from my previous publishing, when I saw the e-mail from my future
editor I thought it was another R&R or rejection. I was so surprised when I
opened it to see I was being offered a contract! I called my partner first and
squealed like a child for a good half an hour. Right back to acting like a PhD
student again, I guess. I hope that joy never fades.